Handy Tips: How Many Friends Do You Need to Be Happy?
In Handy Tips, we find ways that can improve your life and make it easier and explain why these tips work. Today, we will tell you how many friends you need to be happy in adulthood.
Most people do not need scientific evidence that communication improves our lives. Everyone understands this based on their own feelings and experience. But how many friends do you need for complete happiness? The eminent researchers began to search for the answer to this question, because what else should they do? And they have a reasonably accurate answer to this.
Surveys have shown that if people have five or more friends that they can discuss important issues with, they are much more likely (60%) to consider themselves very happy, says Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, a well-known American psychologist, and researcher of happiness, in his book called Finding Flow.
Curiously, the results of other scientists differ from the previous result. For example, according to a study by British psychologist Richard Tunney of the University of Nottingham, people who have more than ten friends are usually happier than those who only have five. Of course, there’s no sense to deny that making even 5 friends is easy and simple for any person. The number of connections depends on your sociability and many other personal qualities, along with external circumstances. Regardless, friends can make life much brighter and happier. Csikszentmihalyi notes that talking with friends brings more joy than talking with relatives or being alone.
Thus, research proves that people become depressed if they are lonely, and feel much better being together with other people. Let us explain: when you must interact with a person – even if this person is a stranger – you face and concentrate on external requests. Communication with another person makes you set goals and gives a response to your actions. The quality and quantity of communication directly affect your life, that’s why spending energy on building relationships with other people is a great way to improve your life.